Degrees to distance converter
Convert an angle on the Earth’s surface to a distance, or a distance to degrees, and see how precise GPS coordinates are.
That's about the same as one degree. East–west at latitude 45° the same angle covers about 78.63 km.
What it means
How far is that on the ground?
On a sphere of the Earth’s mean radius (6,371 km), along a meridian or great circle. A degree of longitude shrinks with the cosine of the latitude.
Every unit
That distance in every unit
Learn
Three things worth knowing
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Five decimals ≈ 1 m
0.1° ≈ 11 km, 0.01° ≈ 1.1 km, 0.001° ≈ 111 m, 0.0001° ≈ 11 m, 0.00001° ≈ 1.1 m.
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A meter from a meridian
The meter was first defined in 1791 as a ten-millionth of the distance from the pole to the equator, so 90° was meant to be exactly 10,000 km.
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Longitude shrinks
East–west, a degree is 111 km only at the equator: at 45° it is 79 km, at 60° 56 km.
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Background
About degrees and distances
The Earth is about 40,000 km around, so one degree of latitude is about 111 km, an arcminute about 1.85 km (one nautical mile, by design) and an arcsecond about 31 m.
That sets GPS precision: the fifth decimal place of a coordinate (0.00001°) is about 1.1 m, the sixth about 11 cm.